The Last Hunter: Collected Edition (Antarktos Saga #1-5)

Seek allies. I remember Xin’s words. But how am I supposed to find allies when this world operates on a kill first, ask questions later policy?

During my brief stint on a soccer team, my coach tried to help me overcome fear. Every time someone kicked the ball in my direction, friend or foe, I clenched my eyes shut, raised my arms to my head and turned away. I was never hit with the ball, but I was terrified of it. The coach, who was a real Grizzly Adams type, got down on one knee, took me by the shoulders and said, “Solomon, sometimes you just need to take a few licks. Then you’ll realize the pain isn’t so bad.”

I’d played dodge ball, the sport in which I was essentially a human target. I had felt the pain and it was the very reason I flinched away from soccer balls, which I might add, are much harder than dodge balls. That was my last day on the team. I quit, told my parents why and then we all went to Friendly’s for sundaes.

I wish I could quit now. I wish someone would say, “I understand, Schwartz. Some people are better suited for slaying dinosaurs and fighting man-gods. How about a banana split?”

But all I hear is the running water trickling past my bare feet. I look down at my feet, glowing white beneath the surface of the water. I stand that way for a moment, breathing, collecting myself, trying my best to bury the fear.

But the fear has an ally. My foot turns pink. For a moment, it confuses me, but then the metallic scent of blood hits my nose. The river is full of it. Something has been killed upstream.

A cresty, I think. The cresties have very few enemies in this part of the underworld. In fact, there is only one predator that could kill the dinosaur here.

Hunters.

My heart thumps against my ribcage and pushes a roar of blood past my ears. The only side benefit to this adrenaline rush is that I no longer feel tired. But that does nothing to quell my fear. Ull would have charged ahead, defeated the hunter—perhaps hunters—and continued on his merry way. All I can think of is escape.

I run through the miles of cave systems that I’ve memorized. There is a small crevice twenty feet back. It leads to a good-sized side tunnel, which eventually merges with another river, following in the opposite direction for two miles before emptying into the giant lake at the border of New Jericho—the abandoned Nephilim city where I first encountered my former master, the Nephilim, Ull. I don’t relish the idea of returning to that place, but I remember that Gloop and his pod have swum those waters in the past.

The thought of the seal pod brings a small measure of peace to my mind. I do have friends in the underworld. They’re just not human…or very much good in a fight. I decide on my course of action and stand upright, intending to head back to the crevice.

A mistake.

Not the crevice, the standing upright. I was so blinded by my fear that I ignored my senses. Had I stopped to listen, or really smell, I would have realized the kill, and the hunter, were only thirty feet away. It’s not until I hear a gasp that I realize I’ve been detected.

My head snaps back and meets the eyes of the hunter. He’s young, perhaps around my age. His body is slender and strong, perfectly built for moving through the tunnel system. His hair is blood red, but cut short. He carries two daggers, both dripping with the blood of the ten foot, adolescent cresty at his feet.

His smell reaches me and I recognize it. “Riodan?”

“Who are you?” he asks. I remember that this is the one prone to rash decisions. He won’t back down from a fight, even with the grand stories he’s heard about me.

“Where is Preeg? Pyke?”

“They left me behind.” He spits. “Traitors. Now who are you?”

Several options flash through my mind. I can turn and run. I’ve got a thirty foot lead and I know every single footfall I need to take between here and New Jericho. Riodan is most likely lost. I can tell him who I am and try to scare him into retreating, but he’s unlikely to back down and even if he did, all of Xin’s misinformation would be for nothing. The hunters would know I was not only moving away from the gates of Tartarus, but also headed toward the surface.

Seek allies.

He’s young. Impressionable. And dislikes his comrades. Maybe…

“I am Sol—Ull. The hunter.”

He stands motionless, staring at me, probably weighing his options the same way I am.

“You don’t sound so tough.”

He’s right. I sound like myself. When Ull speaks it’s at least an octave lower.

“Is it true?” he asks. “Has the blood of Nephil driven you mad?”

I can see him flexing his fists. He’s definitely sizing me up.

“I’m not crazy,” I say. “I want you to…join me.”

“Join you?” The request has him off balance. He wasn’t expecting an invitation. “To what end?”

Convincing someone that everything they have learned, that all of the fear they have been instilled with since birth, is a lie, can’t be easy. I decide to keep him off balance with the bold truth. “My master, Ull, is dead.”